Offshore Company & Bank Account for African Travel Services Provider

[NickZim]

Hello All,

I am the Managing Director of a Tour Operating Business currently registered and based in Zimbabwe. The majority of our customers are from the USA and UK and our suppliers are all from the SADC region in Africa.

Due to the extremely volatile and unfavourable economic situation here at the moment (no foreign payments allowed, all international funds received immediately converted into Zimbabwe Dollars, no merchant services etc etc) we have no option but to register an offshore company to operate as the holding company and franchise our locally registered business to this company. We will obviously also require an external bank account that we can link with our existing EMI.

Privacy is not a major concern but as we are a fairly the setup and ongoing annual costs of an offshore company need to be considered. I have looked at Seychelles and Mauritius as they are the closest offshore options to Zimbabwe geographically but have received some mixed reviews about whether they are the best option. We have also looked at UAE (Ras al Khaimah) which seems a pretty solid option but is expensive to setup and bank accounts seem difficult to setup.

I would appreciate any input from the forum on what the best option might be given our company structure and goals.

Thanks in advance

 

[Martin Everson]

Mauritius would be best option. Mauritius also has a double tax agreement with Zimbabwe which helps greatly. I had a Zimbabwe friend who set his investment business up from there and in end actually moved there for a short while to get things running. Mauritius company and Afrasia Bank would work. Afrasia Bank have a history with operating in Zimbabwe. They bought Kingdom Bank if you remember but not even they could save it and they had to give up their license a short while after. I was a personal friend of Afrasia Zimbabwe former CEO Lynn also at the time and banked with them for a while. A Mauritius setup works fine also.

 

[NickZim]

Mauritius would be best option. Mauritius also has a double tax agreement with Zimbabwe which helps greatly. I had a Zimbabwe friend who set his investment business up from there and in end actually moved there for a short while to get things running. Mauritius company and Afrasia Bank would work. Afrasia Bank have a history with operating in Zimbabwe. They bought Kingdom Bank if you remember but not even they could save it and they had to give up their license a shirt while after. I was a personal friend of Afrasia Zimbabwe former CEO Lynn also at the time and banked with them for a while.

Thanks very much for the quick and informative reply Martin! Very useful!

 

[James Turner]

Agree with @Martin Everson a Mauritius Company and Afrasia banking would work very well. Afrasia are likely to require a professional introducer that is registered with them to process your banking application.

 

[libertycity]

As I remeber Mauritius banks for offshore can not wire money to USA before.Anyone have update now?

 

[James Turner]

I have not experienced that situation in Mauritius.